


the desert (turned to sea)

by queerofcups



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-17
Updated: 2019-07-17
Packaged: 2020-06-30 10:08:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19850947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queerofcups/pseuds/queerofcups
Summary: The desert is more vibrant than Phil expected.





	the desert (turned to sea)

The desert is more vibrant than Phil expected.

Last year, and the years before, when they trundled through it on a bus his impression could be boiled down to hot, dry and beige.

It was just a dark space to pass through, less interesting than digging his toes under Dan's thighs until he yowled in distraction and lost the latest round of whatever dumb thing they were playing that day.

The desert was just a backdrop to them running off to do another tour, the most expensive kind of procrastination.

Phil's anxiety is a thing that can be outrun, can be washed out, can be forgotten if he just keeps moving.

And Dan's depression is the kind of thing that will always pull him back in, but it never stops Dan from running.

It hadn't been in either of their best interests to stop moving, and there was always another project. Another book, another tour, another video.

There's a line a small plants, lining the walkway of the house they're staying at. Most of the plant life surrounding them is scrubby, pointy and brown. But these aren't.

When Phil stops and stoops down to get a closer look, he can see they're covered in tiny, fleshy leaves of pink and purple, and thin sharp spines.

-

Everything he’s learned about deserts prepared him for the nights to be a shivering, teeth chattering affair. The truth is that it's so hot during the day he feels a little like he’s inhaling fire if he stops and thinks about it too hard. The nights are cooler. They’re the kind of temperatures that leave his skin prickled with gooseflesh and his lungs expanding for the first time in hours, big with dusty, cool air.

There’s no one and nothing around them for miles but scrubland and whatever little skittering things are out in the night. The darkness comes at night pink, then plum, then a dark so deep it feels like a hard kind of nothingness is wrapped around them. Phil has to look up to the pinpricked sky just to remind himself that he’s still here, that he hasn’t just closed his eyes and drifted off, half remembering sensation like a old, forgotten ruin.

Martyn and Cornelia go to bed at a reasonable hour. He and Dan catch sleep when they can and stay up too late to feel alone.  
He’d never do this sort of thing on his own. They’d never go out to the desert, choose a house miles and miles away from the bright lights of the city to sit alone with their thoughts and the sounds of the desert.

The water is warm and the nighttime is thick and Dan’s curls are wet and full between his fingers. His mouth isn’t warm, not under the warm rainfall of the showerhead, turned up too high to fight off the creeping cold of the desert at night. But it's slick, and big and familiar.

Phil’s isn’t the first, or only, cock Dan’s sucked, but he’s grown up learning every inch of Phil. Phil doesn’t know if he believes in god, but it's tempting to think that this is the kind of thing Dan was made for.

Dan’s clever, in all the ways that leave Phil breathless. With his tongue, with his fingertips, with his ideas.

Twenty minutes ago, Phil wouldn’t have said that getting his cock sucked outside was on his bucket list, but now he wants to stare up at the open sky and try not to groan too loud (and fail) into the welcoming dark every day for the rest of his life. He tilts his head back when he comes and stares at what he thinks is Saturn.

There is moonlight, of course, but the moon is new, a pale thin crescent that leaves Dan a dark shape against him, clinging to him and the half wall of the shower as he climbs to his knees, pushes waterlogged curls out of his eyes. He kisses Phil and Phil kisses back, eager to taste himself on Dan’s tongue.

-

Dan’s writing a book.

It’s a secret, the kind of thing they hold in the unbroken circle between the two of them. It’s kind of a secret from Phil. He knows it exists, but that’s about it. He doesn’t know if it's fiction, a memoir, a collection of quotes he’s going to have to smile and pretend to love because he loves Dan, with no pretense at all.

So when he falls into a small gathering of cacti, his first thought, before the pain comes, is that this is absolutely going to end up in whatever it is Dan’s writing.

It hurts like bloody fuck, the kind of hurt that happens all at once and happens once for every little spine up and down his arm and leg.

It’s not funny, it's really not funny, and Dan’s squawking concern at him. He hovers his hands over Phil, wanting to help, except he doesn’t have any idea how.

Phil tells him to take pictures through gritted teeth, lets Cornelia meet his eyes and gently hold his unpunctured hand, getting a good look at the state of him.

Dan takes pictures and comes around, doesn’t say a word while Phil squeezes his hand, one squeeze for every few needles Cornelia and Martyn pull out of his skin.

They walk back to the jeep slowly and Phil lays his head in Dan’s lap the entire drive back. Dan takes pictures then, too. Phil’s too tired to protest.

He loads up on pain medicine and goes to bed. He naps on and off for the rest of the day, only wakes up a little when the bed shifts with Dan’s weight and Dan’s hand in his hair, gently.

-

On their way from the house, back to Las Vegas, they stop at a little stand on the side of the road that’s selling cacti.

It’s a touristy thing, but Phil’s a lifelong tourist. The whole Lester family is the type to hoard tchotkes and trinkets, wards against forgetting.

Dan buys a little succulent. It's round, ridges fat with stored water and spiked with tiny white spines. It's topped with a bright red hat, fleshy and firm where Phil pokes it. Dan hands it to Phil, carefully and kisses the corner of his mouth without even glancing around first.

There’s a world passing by them, carried in the cars passing by the plant stand. The desert air is still, and hot and wraps around them like water. 

**Author's Note:**

> Producing desert related content at queerofcups.tumblr.com


End file.
